


Whirling in the dark universe

by tessaquayle



Category: James Bond (Craig movies)
Genre: F/M, Identity, Imperialism, Race, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-20
Updated: 2018-02-20
Packaged: 2019-03-21 20:12:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 884
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13748406
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tessaquayle/pseuds/tessaquayle
Summary: Two people navigating from a faded map.





	Whirling in the dark universe

Gareth spent minutes staring at the ceiling before realizing it wasn’t his bedroom. In the kitchen, a coffee grinder buzzed and a metal filter tapped against the sink.  An automatic pour-over whirred.  A few gurgles were followed by a long hiss.  Two slate Heath mugs lined the counter, ready to be filled.   

As he reached for the nightstand in search of his watch, he found his tie wrapped around his wrist in a loosened knot, a distant cousin to the double Englishman’s.  He smiled recalling the night before.  She had left him at the curb.  Hours later, he showed up at her door.  She tied him to her kitchen chair: one hand twisting the silk around his wrists and the other unzipping his pants.  He wanted to ask  _where the fuck did you learn how to do this_ , but remembered she’d spent years one-handedly stitching up ragged flesh with catgut and nylon.  He twisted in surrender, and struggled to sit still as she knelt before him.  

_You don’t have to, it’s okay_

_I want to, if you want it_

_I do, but -_

_Then shhhhh (shhh, baby)_

Vivian, in black rimmed glasses and a faded Yale t-shirt barely covering the top of her thighs, walked to the edge of the bed and handed him his cup of coffee. 

“Thank you.”

She studied him as he sipped.  “I think my grandmother would’ve liked you.”

“What do you mean?”

She smiled conspiratorially. “She called 1997 ‘the Handover.’”

***

She recalled her grandmother sniping in Cantonese at the aunts and uncles.   _Is it a reunification or a handover?  We move from one oppressor to another._   Vivian’s childhood summers were spent roaming the malls and parks in Burnaby and West Van with her cousins.  Each year, her grandmother teased her about her accented Mandarin.  Before every road trip back on I-5 near the border, they’d have dim sum in a strip mall where cars in the lot packed like mahjong tiles across felt.  They had to shout over the table of billowed pork buns, spiraled-top soup dumplings, sheets of white rice noodles stuffed with pink-orange shrimp; no one thought anything of the noise.  Carts carrying stacked bamboo steamers crowded the aisles, every waiter’s black trousers shiny with wear.  Vivian liked best the first pour of the fragrant jasmine tea and was careful not to swallow the verdigris specks at the bottom of the amber water.  Once, the wait staff had forgotten to refill the pot; oversteeped, the tea turned brown and bitter.  She learned to love chrysanthemum tea her grandmother preferred - bright yellow white petals that blossomed under hot water and resembled miniature sunflowers, the sap only turning cold with time.  

***

He groaned and rolled his eyes: “I’m not like that.”

“I know you don’t mean to be,” she leaned down and kissed his forehead.    

***

(the night before)

 _This is bullshit_ , Vivian sputtered to herself.  Standing beneath the red awning, she had just walked out of Rules.  Lanzhou was city blocks away and suddenly she craved hand-shaven noodles.   She debated whether to march the quarter mile in her spiked stilettos; on a better night, she’d have packed flats into a tote snagged at that last medical conference in Brussels.

The door swung open and Gareth stepped beside her, his fingers grazing her elbow: “Vivian, why’re you leaving so soon?”  

“We had a really long day with Q,” she replied, picking an easy excuse, “I’m exhausted, I need to go to bed.”

“It’s 8:30.”

“I’m an old lady.”

Gareth, slightly annoyed, demanded: “What happened in there?  Why won’t you tell me the truth?”

***

Moneypenny looked on sympathetically as Vivian neared a confrontation with a dense MI6 agent.   

_So where are you from?_

_The States._

_Oh yes yes, but you know, where are you really from?_

_California._

_What I mean is -_

She interrupted him and enunciated evenly _: Palo Alto, Ca-li-for-ni-a._   He blinked, barely able to recognize the sarcasm in her voice.   She glared into the old-fashioned before throwing the rest of it back, the ice cold against her lip. It stung. She slammed down the glass and tossed an oversized tip onto the bar.   Gareth huddled at a table with Q and she felt relieved he’d been spared being a witness to her rage.  As she stomped toward the exit on the gold-swirled patterned carpet, she heard a faint  _ni hao_ from a corner.  She felt the urge to maim someone.  She darkly imagined herself with a scalpel, the power gathering in the center of her palm, where Gareth thought it was romantic to press a kiss.

***

She couldn’t help but fume: “Because you’ll never get it.  You all had an entire Empire built on the backs of others and still can’t expand your definition of what a fucking Westerner looks like.” 

Shaking with anger, she turned to the street and raised a hand in the air, the satin clutch gripped in the other fist, the Burberry Gibbsmoore coat draped heavy over her forearm.  Cabs snaked through the narrow road, none of them for hire.  

He looked at her, bewildered: “Won’t you at least tell me what happened?  I don’t understand.”

She shook her head, “I’m sorry.  Not now, maybe later.”

Defeated, Gareth offered: “Fine, well, at least - at least let me get you a car.  Let me take you home.”

**Author's Note:**

> The title is from Louise Gluck's poem "The Empty Glass." The prompts (3 in 1!) were issued by the great middlemarch (to whom I am indebted for her expert edits as well). A faint echo of Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah" is deliberate. In Covent Garden, Lanzhou Noodle Bar is approximately 0.33 miles from Rules Restaurant.


End file.
